One Step Ahead
by goldvermilion87
Summary: Sherlock hasn't texted John once while he was on holiday. John's worries are confirmed when he returns home...
1. Chapter 1

**CHAPTER 1**

John pulled his phone out of his coat pocket and pressed a few buttons at random, wondering if something was wrong with it. It seemed strange that he could have spent the whole weekend in Cardiff without a single text from Sherlock. But the taxi would drop him off at home in less than five minutes, and he had.

He wasn't going to complain. It was nice to be able to visit with Bill and his wife, and their two kids without constantly answering (or ignoring) his phone. And he certainly didn't need the extra frustration after watching the Cardiff Blues beat the Wasps 21-5. At least he'd had Bill to commiserate with. (To say that watching important matches-okay…any matches…-with Sherlock was frustrating was a ridiculous understatement.) Still, he had expected his flatmate to text at some point. Sherlock hadn't spoken a word to anyone for four days when John left for Cardiff, and he'd hoped some interesting crime would have jolted him out of his sulk by now.

Mrs. Hudson opened the door before he got a chance to pull his keys out of his pocket.

"Dr. Watson! Finally! I thought you'd be here yesterday! Have you heard any more? Oh it's dreadful..." Her eyes were red, and she had thrown her arms around him right there in the doorway.

"Mrs. Hudson, what is it?" John tried to push her off while not dropping his baggage on her foot. She pulled away.

"It's Sherlock! You didn't hear? Oh he must be…oh! When I saw the men come in those suits…and Sherlock looked so pale, and I wasn't even allowed to talk to him, but he called and said he had called you, too, and not to worry, but he sounded ...and then they went up to the flat and I don't know what, and…"

John wasn't entirely sure what Mrs. Hudson was on about, but it was clear that something was very wrong. "Mrs. Hudson, what happened to Sherlock? Someone kidnapped him?"

"No, no. He has some disease, and he said I'd be fine, but the police were here to bring him to the hospital. And Mycroft said that he would…"

"Mycroft came!"

"Yes, and I thought he looked quite upset…and…"

"Sorry, Mrs. Hudson. I have to call Mycroft. You go fix yourself a cuppa, and I'll…" And he was back out the door, trying to hail another taxi with one hand while he tried to find Mycroft's number on his phone with the other.

"Mycroft, where…"

"John, stop trying to hail a cab. The car should be in front of you in forty-seven seconds precisely. The driver was held up by traffic."

"Yes. What happened. Where's Sher…"

"The driver will bring you here. Everything will be made clear when you arrive."

"You hung up on me!" John shouted to…Mrs. Hudson. "He hung up the bloody phone!"

"Did he say how Sherlock is?"

"No. He's sending..." And the car pulled up, and he jumped in.

He dialed Mycroft again, but the phone rang out. He tried Lestrade and at least got an answer.

"Where is Sherlock?"

"John? Why are you asking me? You're his babysitter, not me."

"Mycroft sent the car for me and something's wrong, but he won't tell me."

"Sorry. I haven't contacted him for over a week. Nothing he'd think was interesting."

"Thanks."

He put his phone back in his pocket, and stared out the window, and tried not to think too hard about what could have made Mycroft act so mysteriously.

Er…Well, that wasn't quite right. But Mycroft had sounded…not-perfectly-cool. And Mrs. Hudson had said something like that, too. He hoped wherever they were going wasn't very far.

* * *

About two hours later, John was dropped off in front of what looked like an office building in the middle of nowhere, where he was met by the nameless assistant he had taken to calling "Blackberry" in his mind.

"Follow me."

She took him down a few corridors, and he didn't even try to ask her any questions. He was ushered into a room where Mycroft waited with some tea and food set out on a table. One look at Mycroft was enough to confirm his worst fears during the interminable drive. Mycroft didn't look properly a mess, but considering his usual standards of appearance, the slightly askew tie, and the even more slightly rumpled suit were shocking.

"What happened, Mycroft?"

"Do sit down, and take some tea, and eat something."

"Mycroft!"

"Glaring at me like that will do nothing for you, John. You will be no good to anyone at all if you don't eat something."

"Tell me what happened."

Mycroft looked very hard at him for a minute or two, and then said, "Sherlock is dying of an experimental strain of the Ebola virus."

"Wh-what?" John whispered, and dropped into the nearest chair.

"Yes."

"Dying?"

"Yes. He will not last a week." And it was the almost crack in Mycroft's voice more than the words that made his statement hit home.

"How…it wasn't…"

"There was no foul play except on his own part. My brother was bored, and managed to procure a sample for himself. Illegally. He clearly did not show the care that he should have."

"The bloody idiot!" John shouted, jumping up again.

"You needn't worry. Your flat has been carefully decontaminated."

"You know I'm not…How could he have been so…so…"

"You know how. There is no need to pretend to ourselves that my brother is not…extremely foolhardy."

"Yes, but…" John swallowed and clenched his shaking left hand. "Where is he? I want to see him."

"You may see him and talk to him as soon as you wish. But you will not be allowed to enter his room."

"What? Why not?"

"This is a highly contagious, experimental form of the Ebola virus. He is on airborne isolation, and no one but authorized personnel is allowed to enter."

"I'm his doctor. And I'm a soldier. I was trained to deal with bioterrorism before I was deployed to Afghanistan. You could authorize me. You _should_ authorize me."

"We have competent medical professionals looking after him. Your services are not needed."

"Maybe not, but _I'm_ needed. I'm his friend."

"He has specifically requested that you not be allowed in."

"He...What?"

"He was quite clear on the matter."

"He can't stop me."

"I can. I respect his wishes."

"Mycroft, you never..."

"He's dying, John. This is not the time for perpetuating our feud."

"Not for his own good?"

"Not for _your_ own good."

"Fine. Where can I at least talk to him?"

"Janice will take you. I should warn you: He has started slipping into delirium at times during the past five hours. I do not know how he is right now. I will be in my temporary office across the hall should you need to speak to me again."

"Thank you."

John followed the young nurse into a room with a large plexiglass window. And he looked.

The VS monitor wasn't angled towards the window, so he couldn't see it; but he didn't have to. Sherlock had never looked particularly healthy. How could he, when he regularly skipped meals, and slept so sporadically? But seeing him like this was another shock. He was emaciated and he was paler than pale. The dark circles under his eyes make his face look like a skull. He was on oxygen. He had multiple IVs. Even so, his usual nervous energy wasn't completely gone. His fingers were twitching, and he seemed to be mumbling under his breath. John couldn't make out any of the words.

He turned to the nurse. "Has he been lucid recently?"

"Last time I was in here he was talking about green icing and a cake in the rain. Completely barmy."

All of a sudden John felt himself let out a loud, nearly hysterical. laugh. But at the strange look from the nurse his ears grew red and he coughed. Then he registered what she'd said, and turned to her, and started shouting:

"Barmy? That man is dying and you say, 'barmy?' It's.." and a sound distracted him.

"Sherlock?" John looked through the window, and saw that Sherlock had turned his head towards the window.

"John?" It hardly sounded like Sherlock's voice.

"Hey Sherlock. You're...not doing well." he said lamely.

He'd had no idea that a man that weak could look supercilious. "Obviously."

John gave a little grin. And then fished around for something to say. "So...'MacArthur Park'?"

Sherlock coughed and then rasped, "Someone...told me it..." He paused to catch his breath. "...it could keep you...sane."

"Conscious, Sherlock. I tried to remember the words so I wouldn't fall asleep."

"Asleep. Yes...yes...I don't want to fall...asleep...John."

John could feel a tear prickling in the corner of his eye. But the still embarrassed girl was in the room with him. And Sherlock was on the other side of the window. So he cleared his throat. "Why, Sherlock? Why do you have to be such an idiot?"

Sherlock didn't say anything.

"Why won't you let me in there?"

"Unnecessary risk."

"Much more necessary than the one you took to get yourself here. And don't try to say it's not safe. Your brother already gave me that. You know as well as he did that I'm trained for situations like this. And that I can put on the proper protective gear as well as the next person."

Sherlock just looked at him for several minutes through his swollen red eyelids. And John swallowed again, when he realized that there were tears spilling out of the corners of Sherlock's eyes. Sherlock Holmes was crying. When he spoke again it was barely a whisper, but it was somehow stronger-more determined than any of his previous statements.

"John...John Watson. I...saw you...at...the pool...Moriarty...you almost died...I...almost...killed you...I." He stopped and closed his eyes. He didn't open them again. "You are...my...friend...only one...I...can't...kill you again."


	2. Chapter 2

**CHAPTER 2**

John just stared at Sherlock, who looked like he was falling asleep. His stomach clenched as he wondered if it was going to be the last time. From where he stood, he could see that Sherlock did not have long. Mycroft's estimate of one week had been far too high. Sherlock started muttering again.

"Sherlock?"

When Sherlock didn't respond at all, John went back to the room where the tea and food were set out. He found three doctors there, deep in conversation about the virus and its effects.

John listened for almost fifteen minutes, trying to distract himself by thinking like a doctor, not a friend. And when he had finished his tea and eaten a sandwich, and blown his nose a bit too loudly for a not-friend (one of the doctors had turned and given him a strange look at the loud noise) he realized that he was doing what he always told Sherlock he shouldn't do: try not to care. John was almost starting to think, as he hadn't really since he'd come home from Afghanistan, that letting himself get attached to people really was as stupid as Sherlock said it was.

It wasn't, though. And Sherlock knew that as well as he did, though John knew he'd never admit it out loud. (John wished he could have _heard_ him admit it once before it was too late.) No. Sherlock could be—was!—emotionally attached—Sherlock was _his_ friend. He just had the ability to put aside his emotions do think rationally.

And that is what John would do.

Rationally, there was no reason not to put on the safety gear, and go in and do his duty as a doctor for his friend.

And Sherlock would approve, because he would recognize that this was no unnecessary risk.

Sherlock would never let this illogical I-almost-killed-you-once argument manipulate him into watching helplessly while his friend died. He'd reject it. Say it was emotional blackmail…

But…Sherlock was the one who had said the clichéd nonsense. And now that John stopped to think about it, even dying wouldn't turn Sherlock into a completely different person…would it?

Something wasn't right.

* * *

John was munching on a second sandwich and thinking over his options. He was determined to get into that room and try and figure out what was happening. He could try to fight his way in. He wasn't half bad at street-fighting. And he'd had plenty of practice since he'd met Sherlock. But that seemed overly dramatic. Not to mention that he had no desire to compromise the negative pressure room that Sherlock was in. Ebola-especially experimental super-Ebola-was serious.

So, back to thinking like Sherlock. Sherlock would find some way to hide in plain sight. That shouldn't be too difficult, since with the exception of the one doctor who glanced at him when he blew his nose, no one had even looked at him since he'd left Sherlock.

He'd say he was on the cleaning staff. All he had to do was put on the gear, and get some cleaning equipment, and no one would ask questions.

Twenty minutes later he was standing outside the antechamber, to go in. As the door to the chamber slid open, someone walked up.

"Going in too. Collect some bloodwork." It was that one doctor who'd looked at him! John could only hope the he thought he had been cleaning staff eating lunch...or that the mask was enough of a covering that the doctor wouldn't recognize him.

"I'm just...I'm cleaning."

"Yes."

They both entered the room and John walked purposefully (he hoped) to one corner of the room and started fiddling with objects he found there. He watched out of the corner of his eye as the doctor moved to take a blood sample from Sherlock's arm. He thought he noticed the doctor pause for a moment. And then, instead of drawing the blood, the doctor reached into his pocket for a vial, filled a syringe from it, and carefully replaced the vial in his pocket.

"Oi!" At John's shout, the doctor spun around with the syringe still in his hand. "What are you doing?"

"Administering medicine."

"You said you were going to draw blood."

"I changed my mind."

"Based on what?"

"Aren't you supposed to be cleaning this room?"

"Put that syringe down now."

"No. I'm a doctor. I know what I'm doing."

"I'm sure you do. But you _will _put that syringe down."

The doctor spun towards the bed, but John grabbed him and pulled him backwards before he could touch Sherlock with the syringe. When the doctor swung his arm back to strike at him with the needle, John knew that he was fighting a man with a very dangerous weapon-he had to avoid it, without spreading its potentially lethal contents around room by smashing it from his opponent's hands. Just as he had deflected the blow, and was trying to determine his next move he noticed a third person in his periphery. And somehow in that split second of distraction, the whole situation changed. He found himself looking at Sherlock Holmes, who was...standing? with his wary hostage-negotiations expression…and then he realized it was because he, John Watson, was (unsurprisingly) the hostage. The doctor was holding him with one arm and with the other, John could see by looking down, he had pointed the syringe at his neck.


	3. Chapter 3

**CHAPTER 3**

"Let him go, Doctor Smith."

"I don't know how you're not dead already, Holmes. But this here? This is the same virus I sent you. I may be done for, but I won't go down alone. You'll get to see! See this glorious weapon I've made! You all will. And it will be this poor fool…"

John had just noticed that Sherlock was looking behind Smith, not at him, when he felt a sudden fine spray of something warm on the back of his neck, and jumped forward as Smith crumpled to the floor with the syringe still grasped tightly in his hand.

"What just..."

"Are you alright, John? Did it touch you? I didn't think it did. But it didn't, did it?"

John looked at the dead man on the ground, and the living man standing a foot or two in front of him, and opened his mouth but couldn't quite make a connection between it and his brain. At that moment Mycroft walked in.

"Ah, Sherlock! One of your best performances, I think. Congratulations are in order, and your country thanks you. A knighthood, perhaps at this..."

"Mycroft, you know I will not ever accept a knighthood. Your sniper has killed your rogue scientist, and I have avoided utter boredom for a few days. But now I want to eat."

"Wh-what..." John was staring from one brother to the other, occasionally glancing back down at the corpse.

"Ah, yes." Mycroft paused the never ending staring contest between himself and Sherlock to look at John. "I should explain."

"Yes..." John wasn't really sure of anything at the moment, but that sounded reasonable.

"Not forgetting, of course, that I am in the room, Mycroft, and can hear you if you decide to utter some absurd falsehoods."

"Thank you, Sherlock. I will bear that in mind. Several months ago, it was brought to the attention of the government that a British scientist was experimenting on the Ebola virus, and perhaps a new super-virus was about to be launched on the world. We had been able to track this criminal as far as a specific government-run facility that you need know nothing more about, but no further."

"Shocking!"

"Sherlock, be quiet! I then called on Sherlock, who also was unable to identify the perpetrator."

"I described him correctly."

"'A white male between the ages of twenty five and fifty-five with a doctoral degree in medicine or chemistry' did not narrow the suspect list significantly, Sherlock."

"It's still more than..."

"Will you allow me to proceed?"

Sherlock folded his arms and rolled his eyes. But he did stop talking.

"We then decided that the only way to deal with this man was to draw him out. We calculated the amount of time he would take to respond to a clear threat, and then coordinated our actions so that his response would fall during the weekend in which you visited a Mr. Bill Murray, formerly of the Royal Army Medical Corps, in Cardiff, and went to a rugby match with him…"

"So I wouldn't have to hear John talking about that wretched sport anymore..."

"Sherlock then made sure that all the possible suspects knew that he was trailing them, and waited for a response."

"Which came in the form of a primitive box with a loaded spring contaminated with the virus. He must have thought I was very stupid to fall for something like that."

"Sherlock, do not tempt me by saying things of that nature. Sherlock feigned his illness. And here we are.

"We had calculated on your overly emotional reaction as another way of convincing the perpetrator that this was genuine. We had not-and I can admit my mistakes, John, even if my brother cannot-counted on your getting into the room this quickly, and thus creating a potential hostage for Doctor Culverton Smith to utilize when he revealed himself as our aspiring bioterrorist."

"Smith came in to draw my blood, so he could test it. I suppose I was not dying fast enough for him. And I may have been his first human test case. But of course, once he was that close, he could see that I was perfectly healthy. And he brought out a vial of the virus. Then I fought him off, and Mycroft's sniper killed him."

John knew he would need a bit of time to process all this information. Somehow Sherlock's "I fought him off" felt wrong, among other things. But his brain wasn't running on all cylinders. He was fairly clear on the main point, though: Sherlock was not dead. He might be emaciated and weak. But he was not dead. He was not dying. John was so relieved that he walked forward, and for the first time in their long acquaintance, he threw his arms around his friend. When Sherlock immediately stiffened, and shoved him backwards...and John realized that Sherlock was not wasting away. And when he looked up at Sherlock's I-just-sucked-on-a-lemon face, he realized it was...caked with makeup?

That was when the truth of the situation hit him.

"You...You complete _bastard_!" And one swift left hook had dropped Sherlock to the floor.

Mycroft looked at his unconscious brother as if he were an interesting work of modern art. "You should know, John, that for his own fantastic reasons, Sherlock has had a paternity test. He is our father's son."

John just stared. Then he sighed and crouched down next to Sherlock, who was waking up.

"You okay, Sherlock? I didn't think that would knock you out."

"I haven't eaten anything in four days. That's quite a while-even for me, John."

"Oh…well...sorry."

"John."

"What?"

"I've had a paternity..."

"Yes, Mycroft just told me, you git!"

"John?" He reached an arm up, and John hoisted him back to his feet.

"Yes?"

"Never, _ever_ hug me again."

* * *

This was indeed my attempt to Sherlock-ify Arthur Conan Doyle's "The Adventure of the Dying Detective." It's an interesting story. I find it at least as frustrating as it is interesting, but that's why I wanted to update it! I recommend giving it a read:

http : / / www . gutenberg . org / files / 2347 / 2347 - h / 2347 - h . htm


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